Aadhaar presupposes privacy is fundamental right: Jaitley -Governance Now

Aadhaar presupposes privacy is fundamental right: Jaitley

“Parliament cannot abrogate its job of legislating if apex court is hearing a petition”

GN Bureau | March 16, 2016

#Aadhaar #UIDAI #arun jaitley #parliament #law #supreme court #privacy #fundamental rights

Right to privacy is one of the hotly debated issues when the matter of Aadhaar comes up. On Wednesday, initiating a discussion in the Rajya Sabha on the Aadhaar bill, finance minister Arun Jaitley said this legislation presumes the right to privacy is a fundamental right.

That is quite a conclusive statement from the government, though it was immediately followed by fine print which would dilute it a lot. Jaitley added that the right to privacy is part of Article 21 of the constitution – the right to life and liberty. However, as the right to life and liberty is not unrestricted, and is subject to law, the question, according to Jaitley, is only if the restrictions applied on this right to privacy in this legislation are just and fair.

He said the new bill had improved upon the UPA version and had stringent provisions to protect privacy, as it makes mandatory to have a committee’s ok for sharing a person’s biometrics and that decision can be reviewed by a committee headed by the cabinet secretary, and this sharing will be done only for one purpose – national security.

“Individual right has to give way to national security,” he said. He, however, did not respond to the argument that “national security” is a term undefined and open to interpretation or even misuse.

Meanwhile, Jaitley also defended the move to legislate on privacy when the supreme court is seized of the matter. He insisted that parliament cannot abrogate its power to legislate just because the court is hearing a petition on this matter.

Comments

Other News

Import duty on major edible oils cut

The government has reduced the Basic Customs Duty (BCD) on major imported crude edible oils with a view to moderating domestic edible oil prices, providing relief to consumers and mitigating inflationary pressures arising from the sharp increase in international edible oil prices.

From pyramid to platform: BRICS agenda for Global South

In his opening address at the 18th BRICS Summit in New Delhi on September 12, prime minister Narendra Modi did something India`s diplomacy has been building towards for three years: he moved the ‘Voice of the Global South’ from a slogan to a work plan. Addressing the leaders, he argued that t

How to realise the full transformative potential of PM-JAY

The Pradhan Mantri Jan Arogya Yojana (PM-JAY), a welfare scheme which covers approximately 45 crore beneficiaries across India, provides cashless health cover of Rs. 5 lakh per family per year. It is the largest health insurance scheme which helped crores of poor families by reducing out-of-pocket expend

The missing men in India`s family planning story

Every pregnancy requires two people. Yet India`s family planning programme continues to ask only one of them to bear almost all of its medical consequences. The newly released National Family Health Survey-6 (2023-24) confirms just how entrenched this asymmetry remains: 36.5% of currently married women a

`Development must be judged beyond GDP, with rights and justice at core`

Delivering the IXth Chief Justice M.C. Chagla Memorial Lecture on ‘Human Rights and Sustainable Development Goals’, in Mumbai Friday, former Chief Justice of India Bhushan R. Gavai questioned whether conventional economic indicators such as gross domestic product (GDP), national income,

RTI exposes Rs 16,909 crore cost blowout on Mumbai-Goa Highway

Seventeen years after the centre first approved the widening of National Highway 66 between Mumbai and Goa into a four-lane highway, a fresh RTI reply has revealed a sharp escalation in the project`s sanctioned cost. According to the RTI reply obtained by activist Jeetendra